


Mars

by FloreatCastellum



Series: Marauder Moments [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Childbirth, Family, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Missing Scene, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 22:00:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20496002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloreatCastellum/pseuds/FloreatCastellum
Summary: James and Lily must welcome their child into the world alone, hiding from the world and desperately hoping that the prophecy is not meant for them.





	Mars

She tried to hide it from him at first. Almost all day he had seen her jaw suddenly clenching, her eyes closing, her hand leaping to her stomach and then quickly away again.

‘Lily,’ he said sharply, when he spotted her leaning against the doorframe and turning her face away from him, ‘I know you’re in labour.’ 

‘No,’ she said, in a strained voice, ‘no, I - the baby isn’t coming until August.’ 

Convincing themselves that the due date calculation was wrong had never really worked. They were too aware that they had only decided it didn’t make sense once Dumbledore had brought them to the Hall of Prophecies and told them information so horrifying that it had never occurred to them in their worst nightmares.

‘It isn’t,’ he said, rising from the sofa and taking her gently by the elbow, one arm around her shoulder. ‘It’s coming now.’ 

‘No,’ she moaned. ‘No, not yet.’ 

He led her gently up the stairs, his heart thudding, trying not to let himself shake. This was it, the moment was here. 

Lily gripped the bannister of the stairs tightly as she climbed, looking clammy and nervous. ‘It’s going to be all right,’ he told her, though he wasn’t sure. 

With a wave of his wand, he had filled the bath with warm water, and slowly helped her undress. They were both looking at each other intently - there was no rushed, excited panic here, no urgent messages to fetch a midwitch. Everything must be secret, hidden, safe. 

Except it did not feel very safe, James thought, as he helped his wife step into the bath and slowly lower herself down. Nothing about it felt safe at all, despite all his preparation. 

He leaned down and kissed her forehead. ‘I’m going to get things ready, all right? I’ll be back in a moment.’ 

She swallowed, and her green eyes were shining as she looked up at him and nodded. 

He walked away, trying to make sure that everything was calm, as though this were all normal, as though this wasn’t fucking insane, what he was about to do. 

He went back into the living room, gathered up the book that he had read over and over again for weeks, to the point where he was sure he had it memorised. Tucked it under his arm as he went through to the kitchen, grabbed a large bowl. Filled it with warm water. 

He returned upstairs, glanced in to see Lily still in the bath, her eyes closed, breathing deeply. 

Into the bedroom, where he put the bowl on the dresser and the book on the end of the bed, opening it up to the right page and glancing at it for reassurance, his lips moving silently as he reread yet again. Then dragging the little cauldron out of the bottom of the wardrobe, and setting that on the dresser too, lighting the fire beneath it and plonking Lily’s kit bag beside it as he brought the water to boil. Then into his old Hogwarts trunk they kept at the foot of the bed, his initials still stamped onto it, where they kept sheets and towels. 

‘James,’ he heard Lily call. 

‘Coming,’ he called back, pulling out towels. He hurried back to the bathroom to see her looking panicked. 

‘I… I think - I think my waters-’

‘OK,’ he said soothingly.

‘I think they’ve-’

‘All right.’ He helped her up and seized a towel from the rail as she stood there, dripping, looking down at her swollen belly and breathing deeply. ‘Don’t be nervous,’ he said. 

‘It could be a girl,’ she said. ‘Dumbledore might be wrong. It could be a girl. The Longbottoms - they had their baby yesterday. It was a boy. Ours could be a girl.’ 

‘Could be,’ he said, smiling mildly, wrapping her in the towel and helping her step out. As he helped dry her, she suddenly seized his arms, her face scrunched in pain, a reluctant, low whimper echoing off the tiles of the bathroom. 

He counted quietly for her, rubbing her damp back, murmuring the timings for her breathing. From the dusky sky outside, there was a distant rumble of thunder. 

‘Hear that?’ he said conversationally as he led her to the bedroom. ‘We’ve needed rain, haven’t we?’ 

‘Yes,’ she gasped. He appreciated her trying. 

There was nothing to do for now but wait - Lily changed into a loose night shirt, refusing the cups of tea James kept offering but permitting him to rub her back as the pains grew longer and longer and closer and closer together and the rumbles and cracks outside grew louder and louder as the sky grew darker and darker - 

James felt dizzy, terrified. A lurching sort of feeling in the pit of his stomach. He rested his hand on her stomach as she groaned again and felt it harden, he counted in his head as he watched her carefully, an achingly long minute and twenty three seconds. 

He kept referring to the book. He took her temperature. He massaged her back more. He asked her to lie down on the bed, and when she refused, he pleaded until another pain came and she finally relented. He made vague soothing noises once again. He murmured a spell over her stomach so they could hear the reassuring little thumping pulses of Baby’s heartbeat and then he went over to the cauldron, pulling out bits and pieces from the kit bag - willow bark and rosemary and unicorn hairs…

‘Stop, stop, stop,’ Lily said sharply. He turned, to see her propped up on her elbows, glaring at him. ‘I’m not drinking anything you make in that.’

‘Do you want pain relief or not?’ 

‘All you’ll be making for me there is dirty water if you do it like that,’ she said, wincing as she heaved herself up. ‘Let me do it.’ 

He laughed. ‘Are you-’

‘Yes, I’m serious. You weren’t in the Slug Club, were you?’ 

He grinned sheepishly. ‘If he’d seen me in any other class-’

‘Of course, dear,’ she said, in mock reassurance as she took his arm and pulled herself off the bed. ‘Just let me do it, please.’ 

He watched her in complete admiration as she, literally in labour, made up a potion that had had to practice a dozen times as though it were nothing. By the end, it was glittering with a pale pink hue. 

‘The muggles have gas and air,’ she said, lumbering back to the bed. 

‘Eh?’ 

‘They have-’ More pain interrupted her, longer even than before. James waited for it to pass, one eye on the clock in the corner. The room lit up with bright, white light which flickered for a second, and was followed moments later by a growl of thunder. 

‘Soothing,’ said Lily sarcastically. 

He smiled down at her - making a potion had broken the tension somewhat. ‘Lie back,’ he said again gently, and she did so. 

‘Lucky we know each other, really,’ she said cheekily as he had his hand between her legs.

He grinned at her, so relieved to see the Lily he knew, to know that she was feeling better about it all. ‘I’m fairly sure we’ve been like this before,’ he said. ‘That’s what caused all this nonsense.’ 

‘Hmm,’ she said, wincing. ‘I remember it being more fun.’ 

‘Oh, good, that’s reassuring,’ he replied, pulling away. 

‘Well?’ 

‘I’m going to be honest, Lily, I’m just guessing, I haven’t got a clue. I… think you’re ready for the potion?’ 

She took it, and then lay back again - within a few minutes the pains were back again, and though she still groaned, she assured him that they weren’t as bad as before. He sat beside her, rubbing across her stomach, wondering who was going to be meeting them. He glanced up at the clock. ‘Might still be an August baby,’ he said. 

She looked at him as she exhaled deeply, and then nodded. ‘Might be.’ 

‘The Longbottoms had a boy?’ he asked quietly. 

‘Yeah, they called him Neville,’ Lily smiled. ‘Alice is so old fashioned. So charming.’ 

He smiled back, and looked back at her stomach. ‘They’ll be in the same year. Might even be in the same dorm.’ 

‘Unless it’s a girl.’ 

‘Right, yes. Could be.’ She was starting to look nervous again, so he grinned, and raised his eyebrows. ‘They might end up married.’ 

She raised her eyebrows back. ‘Frank and Alice as in-laws. My goodness.’ 

‘There are worse in-laws to have,’ he said slyly, and despite the condition she was in, she managed to lift her leg and playfully try to kick him off the bed as he chuckled. 

The storm was getting even louder, and all of a sudden rain was battering the window too. The noise of the thunder had sent Tybalt darting into the room and scurrying under the bed. 

‘Ah, come on, mate, you don’t want to be in here,’ James said, trying to pull him out, but the cat merely hissed. 

‘Leave him,’ Lily muttered. ‘I’m sure-’ She groaned again, deep and low and animalistic. James seized her hand and winced as he watched her, and then when it had passed again, he checked once more. 

‘Nearly there, I think,’ he said quietly. Lily stared at him; her eyes were shining with nervousness once again. 

‘I want a midwitch,’ she said. 

‘I know,’ he replied guiltily. ‘I do, too. You know we can’t.’ 

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. ‘I want to push,’ she said miserably. 

‘OK,’ he said calmly.

‘No,’ she said, turning her head to look at the pale face of the clock. ‘No, not yet.’ 

‘Lily,’ he said quietly. Her eyes turned back to him, and he looked into them imploringly. ‘It’s going to be OK.’ 

But it was not, in James’s opinion, OK. The night continued, the storm above them, the wind howling and the rain screaming against the window, and screaming too was Lily, her unbearable agony piercing at James. 

He could not be at her side, he could not push back the tendrils of hair that clung to her face, he could only kneel between her legs, trying to say his instructions without shouting in panic, the book open beside him. 

But as he turned the pages he left bloody fingermarks, and his fear was rising ever more, in a dizzying swirl as he looked from the diagrams to Lily and flicked back and forth to the index, sure that something was going wrong. 

‘I want… I want a Healer,’ Lily said faintly, between deep, gulping breaths. 

‘We can’t,’ he said, his voice wobbling. ‘You know we can’t - we have to stay hidden-’

‘James…’ 

‘I’m here, I’m here - it’s going to be OK.’ 

The patch of dark red was growing beneath him, and no matter how much he tried to count her breathing with her, she was growing paler and paler. When he did the spell again, Baby’s heart beat wasn’t the speed he wanted to hear. 

This was a deeper kind of terror unlike any he had ever experienced. He kneeled there, rifling through the index pages of the book, frantic and blinking rapidly as he tried to encourage Lily’s breathing. 

He could not do this alone. 

He got off the bed, and leant close to her face. ‘I’ll be right back,’ he whispered to her. 

‘No,’ she cried, sounding terrified. ‘No, James-’

‘I’m getting help-’

‘No, don’t leave me-’ 

‘I’ll be back so soon,’ he promised, pulling himself away. 

‘No, James!’ she howled after him as he ran from the room. ‘James!’ 

He sprinted downstairs, wrenching the door open and bursting into the fierce rain. He was drenched by the time he reached the garden gate, and by the time he had pelted down the cobbled road, ankle deep in water, and was hammering on Bathilda’s door, he was sure the rain had seeped through to his very bones. 

‘Bathilda!’ he roared, thumping his fist on the door. ‘Bathilda!’ 

Finally, after what felt like hours but was surely less than a minute, the old woman’s confused face appeared. ‘Oh, hello, James,’ she said pleasantly, as though he had dropped round for tea. 

‘I need your help, please come quickly,’ he blurted out. 

She was still in her nightdress and nightcap, and the rain snuffed out her candle in a second as he tugged her out into the rain. 

‘Quite a storm!’ she remarked, dawdling and looking up as a fork of lightning crackled across the sky. ‘But look, past that cloud!’ she raised a wrinkled, slightly shaking hand. ‘You can still see Mars!’ 

‘That really doesn’t cheer me up,’ he growled, tugging on her arm. ‘Please hurry!’ 

He brought her back to his home, where Lily’s cries could be heard from the foot of the stairs. ‘Is she ill?’ asked Bathilda, looking taken aback. 

‘Sort of,’ he muttered. 

When he reached the bedroom, he rushed immediately to Lily, caressing her face with fumbling hands. ‘I’m back, I’m back,’ he told her desperately. ‘I told you I would be.’ 

He looked back at Bathilda, who was gaping at the doorway. ‘I didn’t even know she was pregnant!’ she said, astounded. 

‘Please help!’ 

‘You must contact St Mungo’s-’

‘We can’t, please-’

She looked horrified. ‘I’m a historian not a Healer!’ 

‘But,’ he gestured helplessly, complete fear overwhelming him. ‘But you’re really old, you must have seen a birth before, that’s what old ladies do, isn’t it? Attend births?’ 

She scowled at him, rolling up her sodden sleeves. ‘No it bloody well is not, James Potter, and if your mother was still around I would ask her to give you a slap. It’s just lucky for you I’m extremely well read and I wrote a book on traditional wizarding childbirth practices.’ 

He threw up his hands in exasperation, and then squeezed Lily’s hand as she groaned and howled again. Bathilda examined her. 

‘It’s all right,’ she said kindly, and Lily breathed heavily, staring at her blearily. ‘A premature separation of the placenta.’ She touched her wand to Lily’s stomach, which glowed briefly blue. ‘Do you have-? Ah.’ She hobbled over to the little cauldron, and then turned, clicking at James. ‘You can proceed as normal now, you know, while I make a replenishing potion.’ 

‘That’s it?’ he gaped at her. 

‘That’s it, all fixed,’ she said easily, tutting at him. ‘Men being involved in childbirth - I ask you…’ 

‘OK, OK, Lily,’ he said, still in a gasping, panicked voice as he moved back between her legs. ‘We’re nearly there, we’re nearly there - it’s going to be fine.’ 

As Bathilda gave Lily the potion, and began cooking something else up, Lily seemed to get more energy about her, more able to follow James’s instructions, panting through the pushes. 

‘I can see it, I can see it!’ he babbled at her. ‘It’s not ginger!’ 

‘I don’t give a fuck, James!’ she growled at him. 

The thunder roared and the lightning blazed, and James guided a dark haired head as Bathilda moved to Lily’s side, clasping her hand as James babbled incoherently. 

‘One more, Lily,’ he said. ‘One more.’ 

‘No!’ she howled, her voice hoarse. ‘No, wait!’ She was looking at the clock. It was quarter past eleven. 

‘You’re not going to be able to drag this out for another forty five minutes, Lily,’ he told her. ‘It’s time.’ 

With one last howl of pain, it happened. A brief pause as the slippery, messy, pink thing stayed, curled and silent in James’s hands, and then a splutter and a cry. 

‘A boy,’ he said, his voice louder than he expected. ‘A boy, Lily.’ 

He brought the baby to her immediately, and she clutched him to her chest, gasping and panting and staring at him, wide eyed as he screamed his displeasure at being brought into the world. 

‘A boy,’ she said, but she did not look devastated, as he had feared. She stared at him in wonder, brushing her fingers across his squaling face. James did so too, his eyes prickling as he kept one arm around her and one reaching out to the tiny, clenched fist waving before him. 

‘Lily,’ he breathed. ‘We have a son.’ 

‘Hello,’ she told him. ‘Hello you wonderful boy. My brave, brave boy.’ 

He kissed her temple, then looked immediately back at him, his world spinning around him. 

‘Congratulations,’ said Bathilda, beaming. ‘James, if you insist on being here, the least you can do is cut the cord.’ 

He did so, his mind seemingly thinking very slowly - like a caveman, or a dog. Baby. Son. Father. 

More spells from Bathilda, and then suddenly to his disgust, she was holding up something slimy, meaty and wobbly looking. ‘What do you want to do with this?’ she asked. 

‘I… I was planning on just vanishing it like a normal person, Bathilda.’ 

‘No!’ she scolded. ‘You have to bury it and plant a tree over! That’s the ancient tradition - for long life. I’ll go and do it now.’ 

‘Right… Er, thanks,’ he said, watching her hurry out. Bewildered but faintly impressed that she would do such a thing in the pouring rain, he turned back to his wife. 

‘Let me clean him,’ he said. ‘You need to drink the rest of that blood replenishing potion.’ 

He took his son - his tiny, fragile son - in hands he had assumed would tremble but found themselves strong and protective. He took him to the bowl of water, still warm from the charm he had placed over it so many hours prior, and bathed him, amazed and delighted by his cries, staring at his small, pink, beautiful face as it screamed up at him, the tiny, bunched up limbs wriggling. 

‘Is he perfect?’ he heard Lily ask. 

‘So perfect,’ he replied. The grime of birth washed away, leaving the soft, new skin, and he counted all of the fingers and all of the toes, even though he knew that if one had been missing he would have noticed immediately. 

He wrapped him in a soft, fluffy little towel, and handed him back to his wife, who continued to stare at him with such wonder as he had never seen. The worries and fears they had had melted away as he refilled the bowl and cleaned his wife, and she murmured softly to her new baby. 

‘We need a name for him,’ he said, coming to sit beside her again. She was guiding their son to her breast, and James thought that he had never seen anything more beautiful in the world. 

They had not thought of any boys names, hoping, perhaps, that they could tempt fate the other way. ‘I don’t want anything too special,’ Lily said, stroking the little tuft of dark hair. ‘I think he’ll be special enough as it is.’ She looked up at him. ‘What about for your father.’ 

He couldn’t help it - despite the still rawness of his father’s recent death, he smirked. ‘Fleamont is pretty bloody special, Lily.’ 

‘I meant Monty,’ she laughed. 

He shook his head, grinning. ‘I appreciate the gesture, but he hated that name. What about David, for your dad?’ 

She considered it for a moment. ‘Too much David and Goliath,’ she said in a quiet voice after a moment. 

They paused, in perfect, golden silence, the thunder still rumbling away but finally growing more distant. ‘My grandad,’ said James suddenly, the thought tumbling out of his mouth before he could properly think it, ‘he was called Henry, and I’m not that fond of that name, but we all called him Harry.’ 

She looked up. ‘Harry?’ 

James nodded, and for some reason he felt a little embarrassed. ‘I know you never met him, but…’ 

‘He did some extraordinary things.’ 

‘Yes. But he had a simple life later.’ 

She nodded. ‘That’s what I’d like. Isn’t it, Harry?’ she said to their baby. 

James heard his name being called, and hurried down to thank Bathilda for her help, and laugh at her dirt-covered arms as she told him about the tree she had planted, and begged her not to tell anyone about the birth of their son. She seemed to understand at once, and he hugged her. ‘I knew you would,’ he said. ‘I knew I could trust you.’ She pinched his cheeks, and waved him cheerily goodbye, and then he hurriedly scrawled a letter to Sirius and launched his grumpy owl into the rain. 

The exhaustion finally hit him, entwined with a powerful, quiet joy that pushed everything else out of his brain. He went quietly back up the stairs, and found Lily singing to their son, her delicate, soft voice, ‘I run for the bus, dear… While riding I think of us, dear…’ 

He did not know the muggle song, but he stretched out on the bed beside his family, gazing sleepily at them, too happy to sleep.


End file.
